(完整版)Unit4CulturalEncounters课文翻译综合教程二

1、Unit 4 Cultural EncountersSusan BassnettWeliveinanage ofeasy access tothe rest of the world.Cheapflightsmeanthatmillions of people are able to visit places their parents could only dream about, while theInternet enables us to communicate with the remotest places and the traditional postalservicesare

2、nowreferredtoalmostmockinglyas "snailmail."Whenstudentsgooffback-packing, they can email their parents from Internet cafes in the Himalayas or from adesert oasis. And as for mobile phones the clicking of text messaging at any hour of theday or night has become familiar to us all. Everyone,

3、 it seems, provided, of course, theycan afford to do so, need never be out of touch.Significantly also, this great global communications revolution is also linked to theexpansionofEnglish,whichhasnowbecometheleadinginternationallanguage.Conferences and business meetings around theglobe areheldinEngl

4、ish,regardlessofwhetheranyonepresentis a nativeEnglishspeaker.Englishhassimplybecomethelanguagethatfacilitatescommunication,andformanypeoplelearningEnglishisanessential stepping stone on the road to success.So why, you may wonder, would anyone have misgivings about all these wonderfuldevelopments,an

5、d whydoesthe riseofEnglishas a globallanguagecause feelingsofuneasinessforsomeofus? For there are indeed problemswiththecommunicationsrevolution,problemsthatarenotonlyeconomic.Mostfundamentalisthe profoundrelationship between language and culture that lies at the heart of society and one that weover

6、look at our peril.Differentculturesarenotsimplygroupsofpeoplewholabel theworlddifferently;languages give us the means to shape our views of the world and languages are differentfrom oneanother.Weexpresswhatwesee andfeelthroughlanguage,andbecauselanguagesaresoclearlyculture-related,oftenwefindthatwha

7、twecansayinonelanguagecannotbeexpressedatall inanother.TheEnglishword"homesickness"translatesintoItalianas "nostalgia,"butEnglish hashad toborrowthatsamewordtodescribe a different state of mind, something that is not quite homesickness and involvesa kind of longing. Homesickness

8、and nostalgia put together are almost, but not quite, thePortuguese "saudade," an untranslatable word that describes a state of mind that is notdespair,angst(EnglishborrowedthatfromGerman),sadnessorregret,buthoverssomewhere in and around all those words.The early Bible translators hit the

9、problem of untranslatability head-on. How do you translate the image of the Lamb of God for a culture in which sheep do not exist? Whatexactly was the fruit that Eve picked in the Garden of Eden? What was the creature thatswallowed Jonah, given that whales are not given to swimming in warm, southern

10、 seas?Facedwithunsurmountablelinguisticproblems,translatorsnegotiatedtheboundariesbetween languages and came up with a compromise.Compromisingis somethingthatspeakersofmore than one language understand.Whentherearenowordsin anotherlanguagefor what you want to say, you makeadjustmentsandtrytoapproxim

11、ate.EnglishandWelshspeakersmakeadjustmentsregarding the colour spectrum in the grey / green / blue / brown range, since English hasfour words and Welsh has three. And even where words do exist, compromises still needto bemade.The word"democracy"meanscompletelydifferentthingsindifferentcont

12、exts, and even a word like "bread" which refers to a staple food item made of flourmeanstotallydifferentthingstodifferentpeople.TheflatbreadsofCentralAsiaarealong way awayfromMother'sPridewhiteslicedtoasties,yettheword"bread"hastoserve for both.Inevitably, the spread of Engli

13、sh means that millions of people are adding anotherlanguagetotheirownandarelearninghowtonegotiateculturalandlinguisticdifferences. This is an essential skill in today's hybrid world, particularly now when theneed for internationalunderstandinghas rarelybeenso important.Butevenas morepeoplebecome

14、multilingual,sonativeEnglishspeakersarelosingout,fortheyarebecomingevermoremonolingual,andhenceincreasinglyunawareofthedifferencesbetween cultures that languages reveal. Communicating in another language involves notonly linguisticskills,buttheabilitytothinkdifferently,toenterintoanotherculture'

15、smentalityandshapelanguageaccordingly.Millionsof peoplearediscoveringhowtobridgecultures,whiletheEnglish-speakingworldbecomesever morecomplacentandcuts downonforeignlanguagelearning programmesinthe mistakenbeliefthatitisenough to know English.World peace in the future depends on intercultural unders

16、tanding. Those best placedto help that process may not be the ones with the latesttechnology and state of the artmobile phones, but those with the skills to understand what lies in, under and beyond the words spoken in many different languages.文化冲突我们生活在一个交流非常便捷的时代。便宜的机票使得我们可以到那些我们的家长只能幻想的地方去 , 而网络使得

17、我们可以跟最遥远地方的人们进行交流。在这种情况下, 传统的邮政现在被戏称为"蜗牛邮件 " 。当学生们在背包远足的时候, 他们可以用电子邮件从喜马拉雅的网吧或者从沙漠里的绿洲给他们的家长发邮件。不管是白天还是晚上, 我们也能通过手机来发短信。所有可以付的起这种方式的人都可以随时随地的获取最新信息。同样重要的是, 全球交流的革命跟英语的普及是不可分割的。英语现在变成领先的国际语言。不管与会者是否是把英语作为母语, 全球不管哪个角落的会议和商业会谈都是使用的英语。英语已经变成一种促进交流的语言。同时, 对很多人来说 , 学习英语是他们通往成功道路上的奠基石。所以你可能会好奇为什么

18、有些人对于这些美好的发展有所顾忌, 为什么英语作为一个国际通用语言会使得有些人对英语的不适应? 交流上的革命确实存在问题, 并且这些问题并不仅仅是经济上的。 最根本的东西是 , 语言和文化之间的不可分割的关系是一个社会的核心, 而我们忽视了一些最关键的事情。不同的文化不仅仅是给不同组别的人贴上标签, 语言是帮助我们理解世界的工具, 每个语言之间都是有区别的。因为我们通过语言来表达我们的所见所想, 而语言是跟文化密切相关的 , 所以有时候就可能产生我们能用一种语言表达出来的东西, 是不能用另外一种语言来表达出来的。英语的 "想家 " 翻译成意大利语就变成了" 怀乡病

19、 ",但是英语有时候必须要用同样的词来表示另外一种意思, 这种意思不是单纯的想家,而是包含了一层渴望的意思在里面。尽管不是同一种意思, 英语的想家和怀乡病放在一起的意思还有所接近的。但是葡萄牙语的 "saudade" 所表达的意思却是不能用其它语言来翻译的。这个词表达的意思不是绝望、愤怒、悲伤或后悔 , 儿是在以上这些意思之间。早期的圣经翻译者就碰到了有些意思是不可翻译的这么个问题。比如你要如何把上帝的羔羊的形象翻译给一个连羊都不存在的人类文明? 夏娃从伊甸园拿走的水果具体是什么?如果鲸鱼在温暖的南部海域是不存在的, 那么吞掉约拿的生物又是什么? 面对这些不能克服的语言问题 , 翻译家在各语言之间反复琢磨, 然后想出了一个折中的方案。这个折中的方案是用不同种语言交流的人们都能理解的说法。当你想表达的单词在另外一种语言里不存在的时候 , 你要想办法来调整